Many articles about diabetes appear daily, many of them very interesting. The intent here is to make some of these available for others who may not see them or have bypassed them. I will try to comment briefly on those I have grouped or on an individual article. This is not guaranteed to be a daily post, but I hope that this will give you ideas for your own research or blog posts. Please talk to your doctor about medical problems.

26 September 2010

Early diagnosis of heart disease and diabetes?

We have been watching since September 17, 2010 and now there is more speculation that we will have a new test for diabetes diagnosis and heart disease. This is still in the development stage and will need further verification as the test presently can identify about half of the people that will develop Type 2 diabetes.

Intervening and screening people who are at a higher risk for diabetes before they develop symptoms can be a plus for these people. They will have the opportunity to take steps to possibly delay the start of diabetes for many years, or maybe prevent diabetes from developing.

The other development that needs exposure happens in the area of cardiovascular disease. The same molecule for detecting diabetes will also give indications of damage to blood vessels that can lead to heart attack, stroke, and poor circulation.

The keys are ribonucleic acids (RNAs). These need to be identified as there is the possibility of other RNAs also being part of the analysis and adding to testing for more accurate diagnosis of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Presently MiR-126 is the big find in RNAs as this protects blood vessels from damage. Five other specific RNAs have been identified as being abnormally low in people with diabetes and in those that developed diabetes.

It is hoped that the new test will isolate those who will go on to have heart disease and treatment can prevent this from happening by targeting drugs at those who would benefit the most. It would be a great benefit to take the 15 percent of the heart attacks that are due to diabetes and have the possibility of reducing this number.

About Me

I am enjoying life, despite diabetes type 2. I am retired and enjoying the time I have for writing and photography. I was diagnosed with type 2 on Oct 2003, on oral meds for 4 months and they were doing nothing to really improve my daily readings. By cutting my carbohydrates I received the most improvement, but still not enough. Then I requested insulin, even though I did not like the thought of needles. That brought about the biggest change and A1c's in the lower 6's and upper 5's. Now I am working at maintaining them under 6.0 and hopefully nearer 5.5.